“If I’d known you were coming I’d have prepared something to eat,” Therese said, embarrassed.
“Wine?” Felix said, offering his own.
Forcing a grin, Derek waved his hand. “Thanks, I can’t stay long. I came to see how you were feeling.”
Therese put her hands together as if in prayer. “I’ve never felt better in my whole life. I used to get winded going up the stairs. Now I can take them two at a time. My mind feels sharper, like a dense fog has been lifted. Felix says he sees God’s hand in all of this and I can assure you he’s right.”
“That’s so great,” Derek said, only the tiniest hint of concern showing on his handsome features. “I also came by to have a word with Kay. Lately, she’s been so hard to get a hold of.”
“You don’t say,” her father quipped.
Kay felt the sands of time slipping through her fingers. “That sounds great, honey,” she said. “How about when I get back?”
“Back? From where?”
“I’m meeting someone for work.” She wanted to keep her plan as vague as humanly possible.
“At ten o’clock at night?”
She knew Derek well enough by now. He wasn’t the jealous type. If anything he was worried about her safety. And he had good reason to be. But if she told him more she might risk making an already terrible situation so much worse.
“Wait here and catch up with my parents and we’ll talk when I get back.” She moved in, kissed him and then broke for the door. He followed her out and down the driveway, her parents pretending not to watch, but watching all the same.
“What the hell is going on? You’ve been acting really weird these last few days.”
When she kept going, Derek grabbed for her arm to slow her down. Instead he caught the strap of her purse, sending it careening to the pavement, its contents spilling out.
They both stood and stared at the gun before Kay kneeled down and crammed everything back into her purse.
“Since when do you have a gun?”
“If you try to stop me you’re only going to make things worse. I need you to trust me. Do you?”
His mouth had fallen open. “Huh?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Uh, yeah, of course I trust you.”
“Then let me do this. I’ll keep my phone on if you need me.”
She kissed him hard, pressing her lips against his and relishing every second of his touch. A moment later, she pulled away, knowing she would either find the missing pieces to this strange and disturbing puzzle or end up dead.
•••
The street lights on Kendal were out when she arrived, casting the already dim neighborhood into near-total darkness. A half-moon bathed the area in a ghostly hue of ash dust and dark satin. Kay checked her phone and saw that it was 10:55 P.M. She got out and circled around to the back of the warehouse. With the pistol gripped tightly she crossed uneven ground, past discarded metal drums and piles of wood pallets.
The door was slightly ajar. She let herself in. Her heart was hammering wildly against the inside of her chest. On the wall, a single emergency light guided her along the corridor. She reached the final door before the warehouse’s open space and slid the gun back into her purse. She pulled open the door and squinted against the bright light shining from the other end of the warehouse. Her arm rose instinctively, shielding her eyes from the glare. In the center of the open space was a single wooden chair. In the office above, a lone, dark figure stood silhouetted against the paneled glass. It disappeared only to reemerge on the metal stairwell. The figure’s hard-soled shoes clicked along every riser. This was followed by a muffled version once they reached the concrete floor below.
“I was not sure you would come,” the man’s voice said. It was deep, reverberating all around her. “Now, put your phone into your purse and slide it behind you, as far as it’ll go.”
“My phone?” Kay’s nerves were so shot she wasn’t sure she had heard him properly.
“You have three seconds.”
Even as an adult, somehow the counting trick still got people moving. Kay removed her phone, placed it in her purse and slid it a few feet away.
“Now take a seat.”
She did so. “What about you?”
“I prefer to stand,” he replied. His back was to the light, which meant all she could see was little more than an amorphic shape. “Time is ticking, Ms. Mahoro. You wanted to meet. Best get on with it.”
She squinted against the light. “There are hundreds if not thousands of other reporters in this town you could have reached out to. Why me?”
Even in the darkness, Kay could hear a smile form on his lips. “We’ve been following your career with interest for quite some time. You might say we’ve been helping you along the way.”
“Helping me? Bullshit.”
“Is it, Kay? That generous scholarship you won to Yale. Did you really think your upper-middle SAT scores and the work you did with your father’s ministry put you ahead of so many other worthy applicants? Did you think Trish Han was thrilled adding a green reporter with no experience to the roster? She didn’t want you, Kay. But we have friends in high places.”
“Who, Ron Lewis?”
The man laughed. “That’s always been your problem, Kay. You’ve never allowed your imagination to soar.”
“So you used me?”
“Yes, but you’ve already figured that out. The difference was, you thought you were the one using me. But I’m sure a smart girl like you has already managed to fit the pieces together, haven’t you?”
Kay felt the stinging pain in her sides, the one that comes with every realization we try desperately to ignore. “The VP and the other cabinet members. They’re innocent, aren’t they?”
“Perfectly. And you helped to get them arrested. You see, the rules of presidential succession are so specific. When it became clear President Taylor was not going to fulfill his promises of destroying the threat to Earth, he had to be removed. But our dilemma was clear. How could we get our man sitting in the Oval Office when four others stood in his way?”
“Frame them for attempted assassination.”
“Attempted was not part of the plan. Taylor was meant to die in that flaming chopper crash. That he’s still alive is little more than an inconvenience. Of course, once the video got out implicating them, there was no way Millard or any of the others could be sworn in to replace him. Not until an investigation took place. One that would take more time than we had. That left our man Myers.”
“And when they finally discover the video’s a fake?”
The shadow man stepped forward, a thin strip of light illuminating his forehead. “By then it won’t matter. The conspirators will face a show trial and then execution. Then missiles will launch from dozens of silos across the country and with any luck, it’ll buy us a little more time until the Ateans send another one. You see, Dr. Greer should never have tinkered with that ship. Can’t anyone else see we were so much better off before any of this happened?”
“And what if you’re wrong?”
“About what?”
“About everything,” Kay said, the fear in her voice turning into anger, rage. “What if the missiles aren’t enough and thousands die who might have lived if they’d only been allowed to go underground?”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to die fighting out in the open rather than hiding underground in the dark?”
“I want to die with my head held high,” she protested. “Not betraying everything I stand for.”
“And what good are principles if you’re dead?”
“You used me, the way your people used Lee Harvey Oswald and probably many others.” She felt the tears gathering and forced them back.
“So many more than you could ever know. Ask yourself this. When we have saved the planet, will anyone worry about the ugly way in which we did it? They’ll only thank God we acted when we did.”
“Then what do Dr. Greer and Dr. Ward have to do
with this? Are you trying to punish them for starting this whole mess?”
“Punish is a relative term. They’re under the illusion they can end this catastrophe another way, a peaceful way. They don’t yet realize you can’t reason with an alien race that only wants to destroy. We know for a fact they’ve done it before. And we have proof they are attempting to do it again. You see, I have a theory of my own. They’re jealous of us.”
Kay was confused. “Jealous? Of what?”
“They wanted to create life on Earth to prove the potency of their own power, while ensuring none of their creations would ever be able to challenge them. They’re the worst kind of jealous, paranoid god who see threats lurking behind every corner.”
“After all that, you think a fake sex tape is gonna stop me from talking?”
“No. But another tape might. This one features your father and one of his young, impressionable parishioners.”
Kay’s eyes grew wide. “No one will believe it.”
“Our work was good enough to fool you as well as the intrepid FBI. Then again, it’s easy to convince someone when they already think it’s true. You’ve played your role. Just remember, when Oswald found out the truth, he threatened to talk as well and look what happened to him. You may not like me very much—in fact, you probably hate me with every fiber of your being—but I just might be humanity’s last hope.”
Kay leapt out of her chair and ran for the gun in her purse. If she could get there quick enough, she could blow this bastard away and bring down the entire house of cards his lies and manipulations were built on. Sliding on the slippery concrete floor, she found the bag and struggled to pull back the zipper. Her hand dove inside and emerged with the gleaming silver pistol. Then a fist closed around her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
She struggled to free her hand. Here he was so close she could feel his hot breath against her. If she could only angle the gun a few degrees, she might be able to hit him.
“Don’t do this, honey. I love you.”
Her eyes rose from the barrel and focused on the face before her. It was Derek. She spun, her heart sinking as she realized the shadow man was gone.
“I followed you using the GPS feature on your phone,” Derek said. “I just couldn’t let you come out here alone.”
She fell into his arms and wept.
He asked her over and over what had happened and every time Kay’s tortured reply was the same.
“It’s all my fault.”
Chapter 49
Greenland
After passing through the stone door, the ground at their feet began to dip at a twenty-degree angle. They were heading further underground, ice and gravel crunching beneath their boots. The further down they went, the wider the corridor became. Tool markings chiseled into the walls gave evidence of the grueling manual labor involved in carving out this underground sanctuary.
Mullins checked the crude map he’d drawn. “My guess is in another hundred yards we should be beneath the pyramid.”
“And then?” Gabby said, seeking an answer to the obvious.
“We look for a passage that leads directly inside.”
“Watch your footing,” Jack told them. “One slip and you might end up all the way at the bottom.”
“Bottom of what?” Dag asked without getting a response.
Soon the floor leveled out and brought them to a spot where the tunnel branched off in two separate directions. The team kept to the right, entering a slightly narrower, roughly hewn corridor with twelve-foot ceilings and chambers on either side. Searching them one by one, they found little of interest.
“Dr. Holland,” Anna called out after disappearing into one of the small rooms. “There is something here.”
Jack followed Grant inside, curious. “What have you got?”
“The wall,” she said, pointing. Even with their LED lights set on full, Jack couldn’t see anything except a smooth stone surface.
“The ceiling is arched and a lot smoother than the entrance tunnel,” he said. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”
She switched on an X-ray fluorescence imaging beam and suddenly a drawing began to appear. Although rough and incomplete, it looked like a nature scene. At one end of the room was a depiction of daytime, complete with palm trees and a blazing sun. On the other was a nighttime sky, thick with stars and a brilliant full moon.
“There’s no face,” Jack remarked.
Standing next to him, Grant was also puzzled. “That’s right.”
“Whoever did this had likely been cooped up underground for months or even years. They were trying to surround themselves with memories of the world outside. I just find it interesting the moon has no face.”
Gabby was standing at the doorway. “That’s probably because those particular impact craters on the moon hadn’t happened yet.”
The idea was still hard to wrap your head around.
Grant examined a crumbling stone table and bench protruding from the wall. “Look how low the seat is compared to the edge of the table.”
“It suggests these people had short legs and a very long torso,” Jack told him.
“Which fits perfectly with the proportions of the statue we found in the temple.”
Things were certainly adding up.
It seemed silly to draw such sweeping conclusions. And yet, if some future civilization stumbled upon the weathered and crumbling remains of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, they could glean a wealth of information on human anatomy. While the size might provide a false impression of how big humans were, it certainly would give them an idea of our proportions, that we clothed ourselves and were relatively hairless, except for a small section at the top of our skulls.
Grant set the briefcases on the desk and opened the sequencer. “I don’t recall seeing many tables around,” he noticed. “This may be the only chance I get to do this in relative comfort.” He began to sit, only to find he could barely see over the table.
“Mullins,” Jack called over the radio. “You read me?”
“Yeah, where are you?”
“We got held up with something. You and the others keep searching ahead. We’ll catch up soon.”
“Roger that.”
Grant then proceeded to crack one of the femurs against the table’s edge. It made a painful crunching sound. Dust flew into the air. He peered inside the opening.
“Anything?” Jack asked.
Grant shook his head and tossed the bone aside. He took another and did the same. This one was far more promising. Using a pair of tweezers, he scooped some of the marrow into the receptacle and closed the tiny lid. “If there’s any DNA in this thing, we should know shortly.”
“Anyone see where Anna went?” Gabby asked, looking around.
“She can’t be far,” Jack said, heading out to find her. “Anna, are you nearby?”
“In here, Dr. Greer,” she said. “Second room on the right.”
He found her scanning the walls here as well. Jack removed his helmet, thick plumes of warm breath escaping him. This time Anna hadn’t found drawings, but what looked like words scribbled over every visible surface.
“Any clue what it says?” he asked, long shot though it was.
“I cannot decipher the meaning, if that is what you are asking. However, it is consistent with other samples I have collected. There are other conclusions that can be drawn. For example, the erratic nature of the text and tremble in the author’s hand indicate either a nutritional deficiency or deterioration of the subject’s mental health.”
“He was bonkers,” Jack said. “Bananas. Looney Tunes. I have others if you like.”
Anna smiled. “I never indicated the subject was male and yet you assumed that he was. Why is that?”
Jack scratched his chin. “Uh, I don’t know. I suppose that’s just part of being human.”
“By human, do you mean leaping to conclusions without sufficient data?”
“In a perfect wo
rld, those leaps are designed to save us time. If, say, ninety percent of homicides are caused by males, it becomes easy to hear the word ‘killer’ and automatically assume the assailant is a guy.”
“Men might be responsible for more violent acts, but not all men are violent.”
“Exactly,” Jack said. “That’s where the leap happens. Facts are one thing, but drawing conclusions from unconscious bias is something each and every one of us struggles with.”
“Jack,” Grant cut in.
“Is the sequence done?”
“It is and I suspect the results will surprise you.”
Chapter 50
Greenland
“I’m not sure I’m following,” Jack said, his arms extended, palms up as though waiting for Grant to fill them with something.
“Based on their genome,” Grant explained, indicating the room they were in and everything around them, “the people who lived here were the ancestors of modern cetaceans—that is, dolphins and whales.”
The weight of Grant’s words hung in the air like a heavy mist.
“You see, we thought they were related to wolves, but I should have known better. They were really part of the Mesonyx family.”
“If you recall, Dr. Greer,” Anna said, entering behind him, “we discovered the Mesonyx’s genome catalogued in the Atean ship’s incubation lab, right along with the sample we found for the human ancestor, Plesiadapiformes.”
“So before dolphins took to the sea,” Jack said, “you’re saying they once created a thriving civilization on earth?”
Gabby uncrossed her arms. “But that’s not possible. We have fossil evidence five to ten million years after the mass extinction sixty-five million years ago which clearly shows Mesonyx still in its small, wolf-like form. The creatures that slowly adapted to the oceans over millions of years certainly weren’t seven feet tall or for that matter bipedal. How do you explain that?”
“There’s only one way any of it makes sense,” Jack admitted. “Mesonyx, as a species, was introduced into earth’s ecosystem more than once.”
Extinction Series (The Complete Collection) Page 50